The hole has now been fixed. Under EC Directive holes can no longer be allowed to wander about at will for years on end particularly if in buckets (galvanised iron)(plastic) or (wood). They must be fixed/repaired/stopped in an approved and safe manner in accordance with the Bucket (repairs and/or renovations) Schedule of Approved Mending Technologies Vols. 1 - 9 and the appendices thereto.

Straw is not an approved material. The name Liza has racially oppressive connotations and must be replaced with Elizabeth. The word bucket can be misconstrued by those audially disadvantaged and is to be replaced by the word pail.

Any further questions should be directed to the European Commissioner for Water (Miscellaneous Carrying Devices).

You have to understand the limitations and methodology of the Traditional Ballad Index. The 1961 is the earliest date where the song is found in the books and recordings indexed by the Traditional Ballad Index. In the book Where Have All the Flowers Gone (1993), Seeger says the original song was "Lieber Heinrich." He says he doesn't know who translated it from the German or when. Apparently, he thinks he's using the original German tune. The Belafonte recording of the song that I have is from his 1960 Carnegie Hall concert.The Seeger recordings cited by the Traditional Ballad Index are:

I thought I'd find this song in George Korson's Pennsylvania Songs and Legends. Sure enough. Korson took it from Der Pennsylvaanish Deitsch Eileschpiggel, June, 1945, which means it must be older than I am.-Joe Offer-

Sweet memories of my school and scout days when we used to sing this song ... (early fifties) There are two songs in Germany, with different tunes, about this theme, as Wolfgang remarked in an earlier contribution. (Pennsylvania Dutch: Since neth. diets and germ. deutsch mean the same - the folk's language, Dutch seems in America to be used indiscriminately for both languages of the Netherlands and Germany.) In both German songs the female Liese = Liza is the stupid thing who asks advice from Heinrich = Henry. The tune of Ein Loch ist im Eimer sounds similar to the American one. In Joe's contribution Wenn der Pott ... , first line of stanza 5, change the article det (Prussian) into des (Hessian). Believe me, it's my native dialect. The second song Wann der Tschok ... seems to me of Palatine origin, a part of Germany bordering to Hessen whose dialect belongs to the same group as Hessian and is easily understood here.

You know, I can't believe I'm spending so much time posting versions of this song. I hated it when my kid sister sang it, over and over again. This is from Songs Along the Mahantongo: Pennsylvania Dutch Folksongs, by Boyer, Buffington, & Yoder, published in 1951. -Joe Offer-

This song, sung to us by the Yoder Girls of Hegins, is a dialogue song for a man and a woman, and used to be popular at the play parties in the old days in the Mahantongo Valley.

Several versions have been published in Pennsylvania. Stoudt's The Folklore of the Pennsylvania Germans pioneered in publishing this folk song in Pennsylvania Dutch, but without the music. The second publication was by Prof. J. William Frey in Der Pennsylvaanisch Deitsch Eileschpiggel (June 1945). The third time this song appeared in print in Pennsylvania Dutch was in George Korson's Pennsylvania Songs and Legends (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949), in the chapter on "Pennsylvania German Songs by Thomas R. Brendle and William S. Troxell. Theirs is the Stoudt version, plus music recorded in 1940 in Lehigh County. All of these three versions begin with "Wann der Jug en Loch hot" ("What if the jug has a hole it?"), and come around again in the beginning. Our version, which also has a unique tune, begins and ends somewhat differently.

The song itself is an ancient one in Germany and Switzerland. Erk and Böhme record it in the Deutscher Liederhort as a universally known song. The famous Bergliederbuchlein, published around 1700, recently edited in a critical edition by Elizabeth Mincoff-Marriage and published by Hiersemann at Leipzig in 1936, includes the song:

Thanks for catching that, Wilfried. For some reason, my OCR consistently read "hewer" for "liewer" (but did OK on "Liewer"); and it read "soil" for "soll." I made many corrections, but I see I neglected a few of them. the original text was correct - it was my error.

You said above that Americans used the term "Dutch" interchangably for Hollanders or Germans. That's true, but "Pennsylvania Dutch" are always German (not that all Americans understand that the "dutch" in Pennsylvania are German).

You may have fond memories, Wilfried, I haven't. I invariably only think of the awful version (luckily I have forgotten the names of the singers) which made the German charts in the 60s (or late 50s). The two protagonists had the names 'Henry' (playing the stupid) and 'Karl-Otto'. A very bad rewrite with no merit.

Who wrote There's A Hole In My Bucket? I know Harry Bel & Odetta did it, but I'm sure it was done way before that. I've googled it but did not get any definite results - a few people who wrote books of that title, some bloke claiming to be 99 years old and traditional. I've heard somewhere that it was originally german. Can the muddies shed any light?

I reckon its a metaphor for Ireland in the mid to late 1500's, and the characters are king henry the 8th and queen elizabeth 1. The hole in the bucket being the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The other problems in the story (the axe is too blunt ect) are Plantation and perhaps the potato blight...

My favorite version by Ed McCurdy goes through the hole in the bucket, fix it, with what, with straw, but the straw will fall out (diverges here), then mend it with butter, but the butter will melt, then take it to the tinsmith, but the tinsmith costs money, oh well then don't bother I'll mend it myself!

The earliest reference I'm aware of to any English version is in the Thomas the Tank Engine story 'Thomas Goes Fishing' first published in 1949 (in the book Tank Engine Thomas Again). Thomas and his crew have had to stop at a river to get water but are having to do so with a leaky bucket. The fireman begins to sing the song but the driver urges him to get on with it.

Oh and I'll boast, it was me who just put that on Wikipedia's page about the song as it didn't mention any English translation prior to 1958.

I learned the common English-language version of this (not sure from whom) and was singing it as a duet in 1956 with Molly Scott.

Not a claim for firstness by any means, because it was almost a cliche at that time, being sung as an answer-back by every gal-and-guy twosome with a guitar. So it must have been familiar to song circles around the Middle Atlantic States and New England at least a few years before that.

The earliest printed source I have found (again for the English-language version, not the Pennsylvania Dutch original) is, oddly enough, Leslie Woodgate, The Penguin Song Book, London 1951, as "There's a Hole in My Bucket." No accompanying notes.

The question is, who is the clever lad or lassie who composed the English-language version, presumably based on the English translation given in either Korson (post-1949) or Songs Along the Mahantango? If the latter, it all happened fast, in the year 1951, but I suspect the Korson version was the one used if only because it came sooner, and was well known among early folkies scouring libraries for cool folksongs.

In May 2008 I purchased a children's book in Rostock, Germany. It includes the "low German" words to "There's a hole in my bucket." The book was originally published in 1908 in Germany. Rostock is in North East Germany near the Polish border. I was surprised to find this song there since I had always known it in English.

The first verse in "low German" ( a dialect spoken in the low lands of Northern Germany since before the 16th century. It is like High German but has many characteristics of Holland Dutch, and English.)